To What Extent Is Social Marketing Used in Demand Reduction Campaigns for Illegal WildlifeThe illegal wildlife trade is a global threat to biodiversity as well as to public health and good governance. As legislation and law enforcement have been insufficient to protect many wildlife species, conservationists are increasingly focused on campaigns to help reduce demand for wildlife products. Social marketing is increasingly being used to support biodiversity conservation efforts, but the extent of its use has seldom been researched. Based on interviews with conservation practitioners, we assess the extent to which social marketing has been used in demand reduction campaign design. We do this by investigating the level to which demand reduction campaigns met the benchmarks defined by the UK’s National Social Marketing Centre. We focus on rhino horn and elephant ivory, two high-profile products in the illegal wildlife trade and in China and Vietnam given their role as key consumer countries. We also investigate how conservation practitioners view the opportunities and challenges of using social marketing in the context of reducing demand for illegally traded wildlife products. Our findings highlight that there are substantial gaps between best practice in social marketing and current practices in the design of demand reduction campaigns. However, several elements of social marketing are widely utilized and a platform exists from which to build more comprehensive behavioral influence campaigns in future. In terms of future needs, practitioners highlighted the need for independent consumer research upon which to build target audience insights, a focus on broader audience segments beyond the product consumers, and the improvement of collaborations across institutions.Greenfield, S., & Veríssimo, D. (2018). To What Extent Is Social Marketing Used in Demand Reduction Campaigns for Illegal Wildlife Products? Insights From Elephant Ivory and Rhino Horn. Social Marketing Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524500418813543Published: Nov 2018 | Categories: Research Articles

Documenting and tackling the illegal wildlife trade: change and continuity over 40 yearsIn October 2018 the UK government hosts a major international governmental conference on tackling the illegal wildlife trade, the latest in a series that it initiated in 2014 with a conference attended by representatives of 50 countries (UK Government, 2014).This emphasis on illegal wildlife trade as a priority conservation issue is very welcome. The trade is not, however, a new problem. Looking back to past experiences and attempts to address such trade can provide valuable insights for current policy and practice. To mark and contribute to the deliberations of the October 2018 London conference we have compiled 16 of these articles into a virtual issue (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/oryx/virtual-issues), illustrating both the persistent and changing themes in illegal wildlife trade research as represented in Oryx from the 1960s to the present day.Milner-Gulland, E. (2018). Documenting and tackling the illegal wildlife trade: Change and continuity over 40 years. Oryx, 52(4), 597-598. doi:10.1017/S0030605318001047Published: Sep 2018 | Categories: Research Articles

Qualitative Impact Evaluation of a Social Marketing Campaign for ConservationSocial marketing campaigns use marketing techniques to influence human behavior for the greater social good. In conservation, social marketing campaigns have been used to influence behavior for the benefit of biodiversity as well as society. However, there are few evaluations of their effectiveness. We used General Elimination Methodology, a theory‐driven qualitative evaluation method, to assess the long‐term impacts of a social marketing campaign on human behavior and biodiversity. We evaluated a 1998 Rare Pride Campaign on the island of Bonaire, designed to increase the population of the lora (Amazona barbadensis), a threatened parrot species. To evaluate the campaigns impacts, we interviewed a range of stakeholder groups to understand their perceptions of the drivers of the changes in the lora population over time. We used this data to develop an overall Theory of Change to explain changes in the lora population by looking at the overlap in hypotheses within and between stakeholder groups. We then triangulated that Theory of Change with evidence from government reports, peer‐reviewed literature, and newspapers. Our results suggest that the observed increase in the lora population can be largely attributed to a decrease in illegal poaching of loras and an associated decrease in local demand for pet loras. The decreases in both poaching and demand have likely been driven by a combination of law enforcement, social marketing campaigns (including the Rare campaign), and environmental education in schools. General Elimination Methodology proved to be an illuminating post‐hoc evaluation method for understanding the complexity around how multiple interventions have influenced conservation outcomes over time. There is a need for evidence‐based evaluations of social marketing interventions to ensure that limited resources are spent wisely. Here we present a new approach for evaluating the influences of social marketing campaigns on both human behavior and conservation outcomes.Salazar, G., Mills, M., & Veríssimo, D. (2018). Qualitative Impact Evaluation of a Social Marketing Campaign for Conservation. Conservation Biology.Published: Sep 2018 | Categories: Research Articles

Demography and social dynamics of an African elephant population 35 years after reintroduction as juvenilesGiven their vulnerability to local extinction, the reintroduction of megafauna species (often long‐lived, ecologically influential and highly social) is an increasingly relevant conservation intervention. Studies that evaluate past megafauna reintroductions are both critical and rare.
Between 1981 and 1996, 12 cohorts of a total of 200 juvenile (10 years old) composed 30% of the population in 2016. The population remains relatively young and forecasts suggest high potential for sustained growth over the next decade.
The first calf was born to a reintroduced female in 1990 and since then mother–calf units have gradually developed into semi‐independent multi‐generation families (7–15 individuals in size in 2016). The size of observed cow–calf groups was highly variable (mean = 21.4 individuals, range: 7–109), with repeat observation of individual collared females revealing fusion and fission among different family groups through time, as is typical of more natural elephant populations.
Synthesis and applications. From an unusual founder population of reintroduced juvenile elephants, we document rapid population growth and the development of normal sociality over 35 years. While this may be an encouragement for megaherbivore reintroductions in general, the potential for exponential population growth must be carefully considered when ecologically influential species are introduced to closed systems. Our study provides key long‐term insights for elephant translocations, which are becoming increasingly necessary due to overpopulation in some areas and local extinction in others.Kuiper TR, Druce DJ, Druce HC. Demography and social dynamics of an African elephant population 35 years after reintroduction as juveniles. J Appl Ecol. 2018;55:2898–2907. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13199Published: Jun 2018 | Categories: Research Articles

Using consumer preferences to characterize the trade of wild‐collected ornamental orchids in China (Open Access)Overexploitation of wildlife for trade threatens taxa globally. Interest in demand‐side approaches to address this problem has grown but understanding of how consumer preferences shape demand remains limited. To quantify the role of consumer preferences for wild orchids in China's horticultural market, we used conjoint analysis to determine which attributes are preferred by orchid owners and nonowners in two socioeconomically contrasting areas of South China. Across all respondents, price was the most important attribute followed by flower color. While Xishuangbanna participants exhibited a slight preference for wild over cultivated plants, origin (wild/cultivated) was of minimal importance. We also measured awareness of orchid import regulations. Most did not recognize the CITES logo, and knowledge of import laws was significantly lower in Hong Kong than in Xishuangbanna. Our findings suggest that trade in wild ornamental orchids in South China is supply‐driven, and strengthened regulations might be effective in reducing overexploitation.Williams SJ, Gale SW, Hinsley A, Gao J, St. John FAV. Using consumer preferences to characterize the trade of wild‐collected ornamental orchids in China. Conservation Letters. 2018;11:e12569. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12569Published: May 2018 | Categories: Research Articles

Automated Discovery of Internet Censorship by Web CrawlingCensorship of the Internet is widespread around the world. As access to the web becomes increasingly ubiquitous, filtering of this resource becomes more pervasive. Transparency about specific content that citizens are denied access to is atypical. To counter this, numerous techniques for maintaining URL filter lists have been proposed by various individuals and organisations that aim to empirical data on censorship for benefit of the public and wider censorship research community. We present a new approach for discovering filtered domains in different countries. This method is fully automated and requires no human interaction. The system uses web crawling techniques to traverse between filtered sites and implements a robust method for determining if a domain is filtered. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach by running experiments to search for filtered content in four different censorship regimes. Our results show that we perform better than the current state of the art and have built domain filter lists an order of magnitude larger than the most widely available public lists as of Jan 2018. Further, we build a dataset mapping the interlinking nature of blocked content between domains and exhibit the tightly networked nature of censored web resources.Darer, A., Farnan, O., & Wright, J. (2018, May). Automated Discovery of Internet Censorship by Web Crawling. In Proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Web Science (pp. 195-204). ACM. DOI: 10.1145/3201064.3201091Published: Apr 2018 | Categories: Research Articles

On Identifying Anomalies in Tor Usage with Applications in Detecting Internet CensorshipWe develop a means to detect ongoing per-country anomalies in the daily usage metrics of the Tor anonymous communication network, and demonstrate the applicability of this technique to identifying likely periods of internet censorship and related events. The presented approach identifies contiguous anomalous periods, rather than daily spikes or drops, and allows anomalies to be ranked according to deviation from expected behaviour. The developed method is implemented as a running tool, with outputs published daily by mailing list. This list highlights per-country anomalous Tor usage, and produces a daily ranking of countries according to the level of detected anomalous behaviour. This list has been active since August 2016, and is in use by a number of individuals, academics, and NGOs as an early warning system for potential censorship events.
We focus on Tor, however the presented approach is more generally applicable to usage data of other services, both individually and in combination. We demonstrate that combining multiple data sources allows more specific identification of likely Tor blocking events. We demonstrate the our approach in comparison to existing anomaly detection tools, and against both known historical internet censorship events and synthetic datasets. Finally, we detail a number of significant recent anomalous events and behaviours identified by our tool.Wright, J., Darer, A., & Farnan, O. (2018, May). On Identifying Anomalies in Tor Usage with Applications in Detecting Internet Censorship. In Proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Web Science (pp. 87-96). ACM. DOI: 10.1145/3201064.3201093Published: Apr 2018 | Categories: Research Articles

Exploring saiga horn consumption in SingaporeThe Critically Endangered saiga antelope Saiga tatarica faces an uncertain future, with populations dwindling from epidemics in its range countries, and ongoing demand for its horns in the traditional Chinese medicine trade. Despite this, little is known about the consumers that drive domestic demand. Investigation into consumption prevalence and consumer demographics, knowledge and motivations has shown that awareness of conservation issues and regulations was uniformly low. Awareness raising may have an effect in reducing consumer demand in Singapore. However, given the exploratory nature of this study, it is best used to guide and inform future research underlying behavioural change interventions in a relatively understudied but important consumer group, Chinese Singaporeans.Theng, M., Glikman, J. A., and Milner-Gulland, E.J. 2018. Exploring saiga horn consumption in Singapore. Oryx, p. 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605317001624Published: Mar 2018 | Categories: Research Articles

Platform Criminalism: The 'Last-Mile' Geography of the Darknet Market Supply ChainDoes recent growth of darknet markets signify a slow reorganisation of the illicit drug trade? Where are darknet markets situated in the global drug supply chain? In principle, these platforms allow producers to sell directly to end users, bypassing traditional trafficking routes. And yet, there is evidence that many offerings originate from a small number of highly active consumer countries, rather than from countries that are primarily known for drug production. In a large-scale empirical study, we determine the darknet trading geography of three plant-based drugs across four of the largest darknet markets, and compare it to the global footprint of production and consumption for these drugs. We present strong evidence that cannabis and cocaine vendors are primarily located in a small number of consumer countries, rather than producer countries, suggesting that darknet trading happens at the 'last mile', possibly leaving old trafficking routes intact. A model to explain trading volumes of opiates is inconclusive. We cannot find evidence for significant production-side offerings across any of the drug types or marketplaces. Our evidence further suggests that the geography of darknet market trades is primarily driven by existing consumer demand, rather than new demand fostered by individual markets.Dittus, M., Wright, J., Graham, M. (2018). Platform Criminalism: The 'Last-Mile' Geography of the Darknet Market Supply Chain. WWW '18 Proceedings of the 2018 World Wide Web Conference, 277-286. doi:10.1145/3178876.3186094Published: Mar 2018 | Categories: Research Articles

Measuring the impact of an entertainment-education intervention to reduce demand for bushmeatUsing a Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) framework design, an entertainment-education intervention is evaluated to ascertain changing attitudes to bushmeat consumption, with the aim of reducing demand for bushmeat trade in northern Tanzania. Analysis did not uncover any differences in outcomes between the treatment and control groups, and thus no evidence of the intervention achieving its initial goals. Authors highlight the challenges of implementing and evaluating such interventions (delivered through mass media in developing countries), as well as the importance of sharing results even when results indicate a negative or null result. Veríssimo, D., Schmid, C., Kimario, F. F. and Eves, H. E. (2018), Measuring the impact of an entertainment-education intervention to reduce demand for bushmeat. Anim Conserv. doi:10.1111/acv.12396Published: Jan 2018 | Categories: Research Articles

The wild origin dilemmaThe sustainable production and trade of plants, animals, and their products, including through artificial propagation and captive breeding, is an important strategy to supply the global wildlife market, particularly when the trade in wild specimens is restricted by CITES or other wildlife trade legislation. However, these production methods can become a potential mechanism for the laundering of material illegally collected from the wild, leading to recent calls for the development of traceability methods to determine the origin of traded products.Amy Hinsley, David L. Roberts, The wild origin dilemma, In Biological Conservation, Volume 217, 2018, Pages 203-206, ISSN 0006-3207, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2017.11.011.Published: Dec 2017 | Categories: Research Articles

A review of the trade in orchids and its implications for conservation (Open Access)Orchids are one of the largest plant families and are commercially traded for a variety of purposes, including as ornamental plants, medicinal products and food. Much of this trade is the result of illegal harvest meaning that it is little documented and is absent from official statistics, at the same time as being of growing conservation concern. Amy Hinsley, Hugo J de Boer, Michael F Fay, Stephan W Gale, Lauren M Gardiner, Rajasinghe S Gunasekara, Pankaj Kumar, Susanne Masters, Destario Metusala, David L Roberts, Sarina Veldman, Shan Wong, Jacob Phelps; A review of the trade in orchids and its implications for conservation, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, , box083, https://doi.org/10.1093/botlinnean/box083Published: Dec 2017 | Categories: Research Articles

Does It Work for Biodiversity? Experiences and Challenges in the Evaluation of Social Marketing Campaigns.There is a growing realization among conservationists that human behavior is the main driver of all key threats to biodiversity and the environment. This realization has led to an escalation of the efforts to influence human behavior toward the adoption of more sustainable alternatives, more recently through the use of social marketing theory and tools. However, these initiatives have traditionally suffered from a lack of robust impact evaluation, which limits not only accountability but also a practitioner's ability to learn and improve over time.Diogo Veríssimo, Annalisa Bianchessi, Alejandro Arrivillaga, Fel Ceasar Cadiz, Roquelito Mancao, Kevin Green. Does It Work for Biodiversity? Experiences and Challenges in the Evaluation of Social Marketing Campaigns. Social Marketing Quarterly.Published: Oct 2017 | Categories: Research Articles

Assessing the extent of access and benefit sharing in the wildlife trade: lessons from horticultural orchids in Southeast AsiaThe equitable sharing of benefits from natural resources is a key target of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Trade in its native species is one way in which a country can potentially benefit from its natural resources, and even small-scale traders can now access global markets online. However, little is known about the extent of benefit sharing for many products, and the extent to which the appropriate processes and permits are being used. Amy Hinsley and David L. Roberts. (2017) Assessing the extent of access and benefit sharing in the wildlife trade: lessons from horticultural orchids in Southeast Asia. Environmental Conservation. Cambridge CorePublished: Sep 2017 | Categories: Research Articles

Attitudes to illegal behaviour and conservation in western TanzaniaNatural resources in and around protected areas in many countries in Africa are under intense pressure as a result of illegal behaviour, such as fishing, hunting and logging. A better understanding of local people's perceptions of the nature of illegal behaviour and the relevance of conservation actions would be useful in informing conservation decisions. We gathered information on the attitudes and perceptions of communities in the vicinity of Ugalla Game Reserve in western Tanzania regarding illegal behaviour and the effectiveness of conservation practices, using household surveys, key informants, and focus groups. We found that local people use the Reserve illegally, especially for hunting (28 ± SE 6%) and logging (20 ± SE 5%). We explored behaviours that are problematic for conservation in the partially protected areas around Ugalla. Local communities reported feeling isolated, harassed and intimidated by approaches used to protect Ugalla. They were angered by the conservation of Ugalla as a trophy hunting site for foreigners, and the excessive force and beatings used by game rangers to keep them away from the Reserve. Improving local livelihoods (17%), participatory conservation (16%), and giving people land for agricultural activities (16%) were among the ways that local communities felt would reduce illegal activities. Our findings suggest the need for conservation measures to benefit local communities around Ugalla transparently and equitably. Outreach programmes would help to raise conservation awareness and attract positive attitudes towards conservation. To encourage local support for conservation, we also suggest that conservation authorities create and maintain good relations with people living near the Reserve.Wilfred, P., Milner-Gulland, E., & Travers, H. (2017). Attitudes to illegal behaviour and conservation in western Tanzania. Oryx, 1-10. doi:10.1017/S0030605317000862Published: Sep 2017 | Categories: Research Articles

Evaluating the Design of Behaviour Change Interventions: A Case Study of Rhino Horn in VietnamBehavioral change interventions are increasingly widely used in conservation. Several projects addressing rhino horn consumption were recently launched in Vietnam. We used key informant interviews, document analysis, and marketing theory to explore their strategies for intervention design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. We developed a framework to evaluate whether they followed best practice and identify implementation challenges. Using best practice from other fields and considering demand reduction within the wider context of wildlife, trade policy will help address these challenges.Olmedo, A., Sharif, V. and Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2017), Evaluating the Design of Behavior Change Interventions: A Case Study of Rhino Horn in Vietnam. CONSERVATION LETTERS. doi:10.1111/conl.12365Published: Aug 2017 | Categories: Research Articles

Bycatch and illegal wildlife trade on the dark webThe dark web has caught the attention of the conservation community because of the surge in interest in the illegal wildlife trade.Roberts, D., & Hernandez-Castro, J. (2017). Bycatch and illegal wildlife trade on the dark web. Oryx, 51(3), 393-394. doi:10.1017/S0030605317000679Published: Jun 2017 | Categories: Research Articles

FilteredWeb: A framework for the automated search-based discovery of blocked URLsVarious methods have been proposed for creating and maintaining lists of potentially filtered URLs to allow for measurement of ongoing internet censorship around the world. Whilst testing a known resource for evidence of filtering can be relatively simple, given appropriate vantage points, discovering previously unknown filtered web resources remains an open challenge. Authors present a novel framework for automating the process of discovering filtered resources through the use of adaptive queries to well-known search engines. Implementation of this framework, applied to China as a case study, shows the approach is demonstrably effective at detecting significant numbers of previously unknown filtered web pages, making a significant contribution to the ongoing detection of internet filtering as it develops.Darer, A, Farnan, O and Wright, J et al., (2017). FilteredWeb: A framework for the automated search-based discovery of blocked URLs. 2017 Network Traffic Measurement and Analysis Conference (TMA). https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:6321b48a-9a84-4452-8e2b-9e0ccb59ff67Published: Apr 2017 | Categories: Research Articles

New conservation methods are exciting, but we have to use them carefully. Our new paper in @MethodsEcolEvol evaluates the benefits and limitations of the Unmatched Count Technique, and tells you when you should (& shouldn't) use it https://t.co/5CsBEewPOt (accepted version)